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Is it conceivable that you might survive the death of your body?

Résumé de l'exposé

If somebody thinks thoroughly about life, he will naturally come across the thought of death. We see death as a natural consequence of life. Everyone is not agreeing on the meaning of death though. Some see it as the end of everything, a total annihilation; others see it as the start of a new phase. Each individual has his own way of dealing with death that corresponds to its religious (or absence of) beliefs. In this essay, I will try to answer: ?Is it conceivable that you might survive the death of your body?' That question asks us if ?you? could still be ?you? without your body or at least without your initial body. To answer that question, we must determine what that ?you? is made of. Do you need to have the same body to be able to claim that you are the same person or would a certain set of memories be enough? I will use some examples to show the difficulty in identifying what is the constituent part of a person and then I will see how that can be translated in after death experiences. In everyday life we tend to identify people according to their outward look. If a person looks very much alike another person that we saw some time before, we are just going to assume that it is the same person. However, that is only true when we know that there are no factors that could mislead us that as the person having an identical twin. But then, if the two images that the person reflects are not totally the same, we might not say for that reason that it is not the same person.

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Sommaire de l'exposé

Introduction.

Identifying people according to their looks.

The case of life after death.

Can we really detach ourselves from our bodies?

Two identical persons living at the same time.

How can someone live without Their body?

Conclusion.

Bibliography.

Extraits de l'exposé

[...] It is a drawback of the theory that to Terence Penelhum, Survival and Disembodied Existence, London : Routledge & K. Paul New York : Humanities P chapter p. 19-36. Although Penelhum does later on reject the possibility of a disembodied person because of the lack of body continuity. P.T. Geach, Could Sensuous Experiences Occur Apart From An Organism', in Anthony Flew (ed.) Body, Mind and Death. New York : Macmillan London : Collier-Macmillan p. 265-269. Terence Penelhum, Survival and Disembodied Existence, London : Routledge & K. [...]

[...] In the case of life after death however, the body no longer exists or at least it is not functioning anymore, hence you cannot recognise the person on that ground. Therefore, can you say that a person survive her death? Possibly yes. To think that way implies that the person's essence does not pertain to the person's body. That is to say that the person's essence, let us call it her soul, is different from her body and thus, by definition, incorporeal. [...]

[...] How can someone live without its body? According to Ducasse, there are five possibilities[11]. Either the mind is in a state of waiting, as a robot could be: not loosing its abilities but not doing anything either. Or, the person would live a mental life (dreaming) but without having any control over it. Or, the person could see again all its life before death, analyse and reflect on it. Or finally, the person could live, interact with other disembodied. But except in the fifth possibility, one would not really say that with this kind of living, the disembodied person is still the same person. [...]

[...] Why do I here reject that I might be the replicate? To me it is because there is both a lack of continuity as well as a problem due to the fact that there are two ?me'. Let us first address the continuity question. In this essay, I have already talked about how we tend to use the body to identify someone. Now, in this case, it would be no use because the two entities are exactly the same, they will also behave in the same ways. [...]

[...] And, as we can only be made of soul or body, if the person is not the body, then it must be the soul[4]. Some might find that view appealing, others might not. The problem that it raises, is can we really detach ourselves from our bodies? Would I still consider being me if I was not in my body? According to Derek Parfit[5], as long as your memories remain and if your body is exactly the same, then person is still the same. [...]

[...] its cells) you are looking at to be mostly the same[6]. That is not something that you would actually check but you assume it is the case. In the thought experiment however, there is not body continuity between the two persons. The person that is going to die is still the same, but the other has no physical link with person you think you are seeing. Therefore, to me, they cannot be the same person. The second problem, the main one, is of having two identical persons living at the same time. [...]